Making a Good Riddance List, checking it twice: Stephanie Grace

Former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, left, and Tom Wilkinson

'Tis the season for sentimental goodbyes, a time to mourn people who've enriched our lives and toast to institutions that will be fondly remembered.

Then there's the other sort of year-end farewell, the sendoff to those things that we're happily consigning to history. A Good Riddance List, if you will.

For 2010, any such tally has to start with the old Jefferson Parish government establishment.

When former Parish President Aaron Broussard quit last January, he abruptly ended both his own 35-year political career and a way of institutionalized insider dealing that could not survive in the light of day.

Even as Broussard resigned, a grand jury was meeting to look into a huge landfill contract with River Birch, Inc., and highly suspicious insurance deals involving Lagniappe Industries, the company run by Tim Whitmer, the top Broussard aide who'd been forced out just days before. Less than two months later, embattled parish attorney Tom Wilkinson quit too, after having been suspended by Broussard's interim replacement. Still more followed.

What set the departures in motion were revelations of behavior so inappropriate, arrogance so astounding, that it's hard to believe parish leaders got away with it for so long. Whitmer did business with parish contractors. Wilkinson did outside legal work, and his department paid several unqualified insiders as paralegals who worked in other departments, including Broussard's ex-wife. Broussard and Whitmer also strong-armed at-will employees into contributing to cash for holiday gifts.

For good measure, Wilkinson's name later popped up in the impeachment trial of federal judge Thomas Porteous, which grew out of the last big scandal to hit the parish. Witnesses said Wilkinson pocketed $30,000 from a legal team with a case before Porteous, his cut for convincing a lawyer friend of the judge to sign on.

And that's just what we know now. Imagine what we'll learn if and when the feds get around to issuing indictments.

Nor will many people miss New Orleans' system of seven assessors, making seven big salaries and applying seven different standards.

Actually, three of the seven will still be around, newly elected citywide assessor Erroll Williams and the two former peers he's hired as top deputies, Darren Mire and Claude Mauberret. Mauberret will be in charge of customer service, which is a cause for some concern, since it was an excess of personalized service that contributed to the old system's vast inequities in the first place. But at least property owners across the city should finally have to play by the same rules.

Also on the outs is the so-called "Katrina defense."

In interviews following the verdict in the Henry Glover trial, jurors said they quickly rejected defense arguments that post-hurricane chaos either excused or explained the accused cops' disgraceful shooting of Glover, a suspected looter, and the burning of his body.

"You had to think about it, that was the setting," said jury foreperson Kelly Rasmus. "But you can't say people did this because of Katrina. The rules still apply ... The Police Department is there to protect us, especially in times of crisis, when we need them the most."

In other words, the law doesn't make exceptions, so the jurors didn't either. It apparently wasn't even a close call.

Good riddance also to Louisiana's congressional party primaries.

The two elections Louisiana conducted under the system produced a lot of confusion, but not much consensus this was a better way to choose politicians than the familiar open primary system. It also cost more, due to the occasional requirement that voters go to the polls three times -- in the party primary, the party runoff and the general election -- rather than twice.

The old system really wasn't broken, so there was no good reason to fix it.
And then there's Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Deputy Steven Seagal. Enough said.
Finally, a not-at-all fond farewell to New Orleans' Nagin-era domain names, cityofno.com and mayorofno.com.

Actually, the internet addresses were meant to be shorthand for city and mayor of New Orleans. But not surprisingly, they morphed into a running joke, an unintentional commentary on City Hall's chronic dysfunction under former Mayor Ray Nagin.

I never figured out whether the Naginites who came up with the domain names meant to be hip and ironic, or whether they were plain old tone deaf. But it doesn't much matter any more. New Mayor Mitch Landrieu recognized bad public relations when he saw it, and decided to go with plain old nola.gov.

Apparently cityofyes.com was already taken.

Stephanie Grace is a columnist for The Times-Picayune. She can be reached at sgrace@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3383.